Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

  Monday, May 21, dawned dreary and rainy in New York City. As it neared the memorial service’s noon starting time, a light drizzle was still falling; the sidewalk outside the cathedral was dotted with puddles that children in yellow rain slickers splashed through as their parents led them up the steps and into the cathedral’s enormous nave. As each guest entered, they were handed a long wand—actually a puppeteer’s arm rod—with a bright foam butterfly attached at the end, one of the thousands put together by the Muppet Workshop over the last three days.

  Inside, photos of Jim and his various creations looked down from the walls and the back of the altar; at Jane’s insistence, the cathedral was filled with brightly colored flowers. As expected, the place was packed nearly full—so full, in fact, that many parents sat with their children in the main aisle, their arms wrapped around stuffed Ernies or Big Birds. “I would think all the people who work for me should be invited,” Jim had specified in one of his letters, “plus my relatives, friends, lovers, etc.” And so they were—Novell took particular delight in seating several of Jim’s girlfriends together in the same row—plus so many others. George Lucas sat among the Muppet performers and staff, as did Disney chiefs Frank Wells and Michael Eisner. (“[Eisner] was crushed,” said Brillstein, who had flown to New York with the Disney CEO.) Joan Ganz Cooney—who said she had felt “wasted” in the days following Jim’s death—sat nearby as well, along with most of the writers and performers from Sesame Street.

  It was the theme to Sesame Street, in fact, that the audience would hear first, followed by “Rainbow Connection,” played on the cathedral’s enormous pipe organ. The family came in next, trailing behind the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, playing a slow traditional New Orleans dirge—you could take Jim out of the South, but you could never entirely take the South out of Jim. As Jim had requested, Richard Hunt—already showing symptoms of the HIV virus that would take his life less than two years later—acted as an informal emcee, opening the memorial by reading aloud from some of the countless letters that had poured into One Seventeen over the last five days. “That was just amazing,” said Kevin Clash. “Letters from a truck driver and a little boy in Ohio or the president. It was amazing … just amazing.”

  There were plenty of other amazing moments over the next two and a half hours. Louise Gold, in the big voice that the Muppet performers loved, sang “Bring Him Home,” the song from Les Misérables that Jim adored—a feat that still had Fran Brill in awe decades later. “I remember admiring Louise Gold so much for getting up and singing that beautiful song,” said Brill, “and thinking, ‘How did she do that?’ ” Gold’s serenity also impressed Jerry Nelson as the two of them sang the hymnlike “Where the River Meets the Sea,” from Emmet Otter. “I remember coming close to breaking on that,” said Nelson. “Louise held me together there with it.” Harry Belafonte performed “Turn the World Around,” the same song he had performed so memorably on The Muppet Show more than a decade earlier. As if on cue, the moment Belafonte’s song ended, sunlight came streaming in through the big stained-glass windows. Foam butterflies danced and fluttered in the colored light inside the cathedral. There was an audible gasp. It was “a sight I’ll never forget,” said one audience member.

  As Jim had asked, friends said “a few nice, happy words about how much we enjoyed doing this stuff together.” Jerry Juhl warmly recalled how “Jim taught us many things: to save the planet, be kind to each other, praise God, and be silly. That’s how I’ll remember him—as a man who was balanced effortlessly and gracefully between the sacred and the silly.” Frank Oz spoke of the joy in making Jim laugh, and of the love and care Jim had put into making and giving him an elaborate Christmas gift. Oz understood “the generosity of [Jim’s] time to do this when he was so busy.… I think that’s when I knew that he loved me and I loved him.” Breaking down, Oz left the stage in tears.

  After Oz’s speech, a lone piano played a long, melodious introduction to “Bein’ Green.” Then, from the rear of the church, came Caroll Spinney as Big Bird, wearing a Kermit-green bow tie, lumbering slowly up through the audience to the central stage, where he tearfully sang Joe Raposo’s heartfelt song. “Somehow,” said Spinney later, “I managed to do it without crying.” As the final chord faded, Big Bird looked skyward. “Thank you, Kermit,” he said. (Brillstein, who was the next speaker, brightened the moment when he ad-libbed, “Jim told me, ‘Never follow the Bird!’ ”)

  Perhaps predictably, one of the most remarkable moments involved the Muppet performers—Oz, Nelson, Goelz, Hunt, Whitmire, and Clash—singing, hugging, crying, and laughing as they worked their way through a long medley of some of Jim’s favorite songs. Most were the old vaudeville tunes or the songs of Pogo or A. A. Milne—“Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” “Cottleston Pie,” “Halfway Down the Stairs”—that Jim and his family had sung around the Henson family piano and had eventually found their way into The Muppet Show. The six performers sat on stools, without puppets, until the very end, when Richard Hunt slid Scooter onto his right arm and began singing the opening bars of “Just One Person,” from the 1975 musical Snoopy, a song the group had first performed on The Muppet Show in 1977. It was a song Jim loved, with a simple message that seemed to sum up his own joy in collaboration:

  If just one person believes in you—

  Deep enough, and strong enough, believes in you,

  Hard enough, and long enough—

  Before you knew it, someone else would think:

  “If he can do it, I can do it.”

  At the second verse, Hunt was joined by Nelson performing Gobo, his character from Fraggle Rock—then, on the third verse, with Whitmire, performing Wembley. As the piano swelled into the final verse, Clash joined with Elmo, and Oz with Fozzie Bear—and suddenly the stage was full of Muppet performers, standing beneath a large photograph of Jim as they waved their characters in the air and sang:

  And when all those people believe in you—

  Deep enough, and strong enough believe in you,

  Hard enough and long enough—

  It stands to reason you yourself will start to see

  What everybody sees in you …

  And maybe even you

  Can believe in you, too.

  Standing amid the sea of her fellow performers, Fran Brill, with her Prairie Dawn Muppet from Sesame Street on her arm, was so overcome with emotion she could barely perform. “I know I couldn’t sing,” she said later. “I think my mouth tried to move, but I was just crying so much I could not sing.” It didn’t matter; the audience was already on its feet, cheering and crying.

  Finally, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band leapt into a rousing performance of “When the Saints Go Marching In”—just as Jim had asked—and “we all marched out of the cathedral smiling, singing, crying,” said Caroll Spinney. Jim’s “nice, friendly little service” had been, as Life magazine put it, “an epic and almost unbearably moving event.”

  Six weeks later, on July 2, 1990, a similar memorial service was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where Fraggle Rock writer Jocelyn Stevenson delivered one of the day’s most poignant, elegant, and memorable speeches:

  When Jim left the planet so suddenly, all of us who loved him, worked with him, were inspired by him, gathered in New York City. We were like dandelion seeds clinging to the stem and to each other. And on May 16th, [the day Jim died] the wind began to blow.

  There’s no stem any more. We’re all floating on the breeze. And it’s scary and exhilarating, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But gradually, we’ll all drift to the ground and plant ourselves. And no matter what we grow into, it’ll be influenced by Jim. We’re Jim’s seeds. And it’s not only those of us who knew him. Everyone who was touched by his work is a Jim-seed.

  Jim was not interred at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, nor at St. Paul’s Cathedral—these were memorials, not funerals. In fact, his body wasn’t there at all. Four days after his death, Jim’s body—as he had specified—was cremated at Fernclif
f Cemetery crematory in Ardsley, New York. (His death certificate, to his likely delight, listed his occupation as “Creator, Producer.”) His ashes were stored in an urn and put in the care of John Henson, perhaps the most spiritual or ethereal of the Henson children, who then spent more than a year trying to determine the most appropriate place to scatter the ashes. In one of his letters to the children, Jim had suggested “a pretty river or freshly plowed field or the ocean,” adding that “the thought of burial in a pretty place also appeals to me.” The more he thought about it, then, the more John thought he finally knew the place.

  Several years earlier, Jim and John had been driving near Taos, New Mexico, when Jim had pointed to a small cluster of foothills. “See those hills over there?” he asked John, smiling into the sunlight. “I feel like I’m supposed to live there. I really feel like that’s the place I’m supposed to be.” “I could never figure out exactly which one [of the foothills] he was talking about,” John said later—but then he remembered a bit of advice from his father. “I try to tune myself in to whatever it is that I’m supposed to be,” Jim had once written, “and I try to think of myself as a part of all of us—all mankind and all life.” John thought if he and the family went out to visit the Taos area again, he might be able to “tune in” to the precise spot Jim had pointed out—that place Jim felt he was “supposed to be.” They would scatter the ashes there.

  In May 1992, then—exactly two years after Jim’s death—John drove his mother and his brother and sisters through a dried-up New Mexico riverbed, scouring the mountains around Taos until he spotted an oddly shaped foothill. “It just looked like a pyramid in the middle of nowhere,” remembered John. The family left their SUV and began their journey across the desert toward John’s pyramidal foothill, when Jane suddenly sat down on a boulder and declared she had walked far enough. John delicately reached into the urn and handed his mother a handful of Jim’s ashes; then the Henson children began the slow ascent up the foothill. (Lisa later joked that she was fairly certain “we hiked up onto somebody’s personal property. I would never be able to find it again if my life depended on it.”) As they reached the top, John spotted small dark crystals scattered across the ground, glinting blue in the sunlight. “This is it,” he said excitedly.

  The Henson children took a moment to quietly remember their father—“to make peace with ourselves,” said John, “and remember our time with Dad”—then threw his ashes into the warm New Mexico wind, scattering them like the delicate dandelion seeds Jocelyn Stevenson had spoken of at the London memorial service.

  Jim Henson’s physical body was gone, and yet that powerful presence—that undefinable something that compelled men to seek his appreciation and approval, and that women found somehow irresistible—would always remain. Anyone who had ever smiled as Ernie tried to play a rhyming game with Bert, or laughed as Kermit had chased Fozzie off the stage, arms flailing, had felt it. Anyone who had ever wished they could explore a Fraggle hole, save the world with a crystal shard, or dance with a charismatic goblin king had been touched by it.

  It was there now still, in the last words Jim had passed on to his children—the words in the second letter he had written in his hotel room in France that day in 1986. They were words of reassurance for his children, but anyone reading them would be reminded of the power of his presence, and that “ridiculous optimism” that Jim infused in everything he did and in every life he touched. For the last time, then, with his own words ringing happily, almost audibly, from the page, Jim stepped calmly into the center of a hurricane of sadness and uncertainty to assure his children that everything was going to be all right. The presence was still there. Just like Kermit. Just like always:

  First of all, please don’t feel bad that I’m gone. While I will miss spending time with each of you, I’m sure it will be an interesting time for me, and I look forward to seeing all of you when you come over.…

  I feel life has been a joy for me—I certainly hope it is for you.… Life is meant to be fun, and joyous, and fulfilling. May each of yours be that—having each of you as a child of mine has certainly been one of the good things in my life. Know that I’ve always loved each of you with an eternal, bottomless love. A love that has nothing to do with each other, for I feel my love for each of you is total and all-encompassing. This all may sound silly and over the top to you guys, but what the hell, I’m gone and who can argue with me?

  … To each of you I send my love. If, on this side of life, I’m able to watch over and help you out—know that I will. If I can’t, I’m sure I can at least be waiting for you when you come over.

  And finally, for his children, and for anyone touched by his life, his work, or his extraordinary imagination—those Jim-seeds that Jocelyn Stevenson had spoken of so lovingly—Jim offered a final benediction:

  Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it.

  Love,

  JIM

  EPILOGUE

  LEGACY

  (photo credit epl.1)

  IN THE END, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY WOULD END UP OWNING THE Muppets—but it would take nearly fifteen years to get them. In the weeks and months following Jim’s May 1990 death, negotiations between the two companies intensified—Disney CEO Michael Eisner even vowed to Bernie Brillstein that he was “gonna make this deal go through and happen in memory of Jim”—but discussions, and relations, eroded rapidly. With Jim no longer there to be the “creative vitality” acquired in the deal, Disney went looking for other assets within the Henson organization, and began sniffing around the Sesame Street Muppets again. This time, it was the Henson children who held firm; Sesame Street was still a nonstarter. Negotiations continued into the winter, but with no resolution. In December 1990, both sides walked away.

  Ultimately, what scuttled the agreement was not the fact that Disney was no longer getting Jim in the deal—nor was it because Disney was trying to roll the Sesame Street Muppets into the transaction. Rather, it was “death and taxes,” related Henson attorney Peter Schube. Jim’s death and the subsequent, staggering estate taxes put both sides in such a complicated and untenable position that neither could make the deal work to anyone’s benefit. Just as critically, the tone of the discussions—always important to Jim—had become toxic. While there would be a tight-lipped agreement that would allow Disney to complete and retain Muppet*Vision 3D, the excitement, the camaraderie Jim relished, was gone. “It finally became a situation where there was not enough joy left in the transaction for anybody,” said Schube. “There was no joy left in it for Disney and there was not enough joy left in it for the family.”

  And so the deal evaporated—and with it The List. Although there were some who grumbled—a few people had even made some expensive purchases in anticipation of the expected windfall—most felt as Bernie Brillstein did: “Believe me,” said the agent, “I’d have gladly given up the money to have him back.”

  The company, and the Muppets, remained in the control of the Henson children for the next decade, while Kermit the Frog was, quite literally, put in the able hands of Muppet veteran Steve Whitmire. With Brian Henson at the helm—joined later by Lisa—The Jim Henson Company, as it would finally come to be called, continued to produce noteworthy Muppet films and specials—many with the help of the Walt Disney Company—and expanded into children’s television, but it was becoming “harder and harder for independent companies like ours,” said Brian Henson—and in 2000, the company, including its Sesame Street assets, was sold to EM.TV & Merchandising, a German media group. Over the next three years, however, EM.TV’s stock soured, and by 2003, the Hensons were able to buy their own company back again—minus the Sesame Street Muppets, which EM.TV had sold to CTW (now Sesame Workshop), the “natural home for those characters,” said Lisa.

  Finally, in February 2004, the Muppets were sold to Disney. While The Jim Henson Company would hold on to the Creature Shop, the Fraggles, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal, the Muppets were fin
ally with Disney—just where Jim had wanted them. “We are honored that the Henson family has agreed to pass on to us the stewardship of these cherished assets,” said Michael Eisner.

  The Muppet legacy was secure—and Jim Henson’s own legacy seems to grow with each passing year, as each generation comes to discover—and in some cases rediscover—Jim and his work and claim both as their own. The first generation of children raised with Grover and Sesame Street grew up and raised their own children on the same familiar street with the old familiar friends. The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth—as Jim had known they would all along—found wide and devoted audiences, who savor and appreciate the films with the same adoration and intensity Jim put into making them. And the Muppets themselves—successfully and lovingly returned to the movie screen by Disney in 2011—only continue to grow brighter, more colorful, and more beloved.

  Jim Henson’s legacy, however, will always be more than merely Muppets. In 1993, Jane Henson founded the nonprofit Jim Henson Legacy, a tribute celebrating Jim’s countless contributions to the worlds of puppetry, television, motion pictures, special effects, and media technology. Still, Jim’s legacy extends beyond those creative efforts—even beyond the foundation he established to promote the art of puppetry, still running strong today.

  Simply, Jim Henson’s greatest legacy will always be Jim himself: the way he was, and the way he encouraged and inspired others to be—the simple grace and soft-spoken dignity he brought to the world (and expected, sometimes fruitlessly, of others), as well as his faith in a greater good that he believed he and his fellow inhabitants of the globe were capable of. “Jim inspired people to be better than they thought they could be,” said Bernie Brillstein warmly, “and more creative, more daring, more outrageous, and ultimately more successful. And he did it all without raising his voice.”

  In show business in particular, where so much depends on the ruthless art of the deal, Jim’s generosity and genuine respect for talent—as well as that faint aura of Southern gentleman that always seemed to linger about him—made for an unconventional way of doing business. “In this industry, people love you because you have something to give them, and they stop loving you if they feel that they don’t have any more they need from you,” said Storyteller writer Anthony Minghella. “With Jim, there was never any suspicion that his affection was predicated on what he might be able to take from you.” Muppet performer Jerry Nelson thought there was a quiet majesty in the way Jim lived and worked. “I see Jim’s life as a very Zen kind of thing,” said Nelson. “I never heard him say rude or bad things about other people. He lived, I think, by example. To show other people how to be by who you are.”